(Wolff Telegraphic Bureau, Berlin, May 26, 1915.)
We learn from the Great Headquarters the following concerning the
progress of the operations of the Teutonic allies in Middle Galicia:
In barely fourteen days the army of Mackensen has carried its
offensive forward from Gorlice to Jaroslaw. With daily fighting, for
the most part against fortified positions, it has crossed the line of
three rivers and gained in territory more than 100 kilometers in an
airline. On the evening of the fourteenth day, with the taking of the
city and bridge-head, Jaroslau, they won access to the lower San. It
was now necessary to cross this stream on a broad front. The enemy,
though, still held before Radymo and in the angle of San-Wislok with
two strongly fortified bridge-heads the west bank of this river. For
the rest he confined himself to the frontal defense of the east bank.
While troops of the guard in close touch with Austrian regiments
gained, fighting, the crossing of the river at Jaroslau, and continued
to throw the enemy, who was daily receiving reinforcements,
continually further toward the east and northeast, Hanoverian
regiments forced the passage of the river several kilometers further
down stream. Brunswickers, by the storming of the heights of
Wiazowinca, opened the way and thereby won the obstinately defended
San crossing. Further to the north the San angle was cleared of the
enemy that had still held on there. One Colonel, fifteen officers,
7,800 prisoners, four cannon, twenty-eight machine guns, thirteen
ammunition wagons, and a field kitchen fell into our hands. The rest
found themselves obliged to make a hasty retreat to the east bank.
These battles and successes took place on the 17th of May in the
presence of the German Emperor, who, on the same day, conferred upon
the Chief of Staff of the army here engaged, Colonel von Seeckt, the
order _pour le mérite_, the commander of the army, General von
Mackensen, having already received special honors. The Emperor had
hurried forward to his troops by automobile. On the way he was greeted
with loud hurrahs by the wounded riding back in wagons. On the heights
of Jaroslau the Emperor met Prince Eitel Friedrich, and then, from
several points of observation, for hours followed with keen attention
the progress of the battle for the crossing.
In the days from the 18th to the 20th of May the Teutonic allies
pressed on further toward the east, northeast, and north, threw the
enemy out of Sieniawa and took up positions on the east bank of the
river upon a front of twenty or thirty kilometers. The enemy withdrew
behind the Lerbaczowa stream. All his attempts to win back the lost
ground were unsuccessful, although in the days from the 13th to the
20th of May he brought on no less than six fresh divisions to stem our
advance at and beyond Jaroslau.
Altogether, the Russian command had since the beginning of the
operation thrown seven army corps from other areas of the war against
the front of the army of von Mackensen and against the centre and
right wing of the army of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand. These were the
Third Caucasian, the Fifteenth, and a combined army corps, six
individual infantry regiments, the Thirty-fourth, Forty-fifth,
Fifty-eighth, Sixty-second, Sixty-third, Seventy-seventh, and
Eighty-first Infantry, and the Thirteenth Siberian division, not
counting a cavalry division, which entered the field already in the
earliest days. With the combined army corps there appeared a Caucasian
infantry division, the Third, made up of Armenians and Grusinians,
which till January had fought in Persia, was transferred in April to
Kars, and later to Odessa, where it formed part of the so-called Army
of the Bosporus. Before our front now also appeared Cossacks on foot,
a special militia formation, which hitherto had fought in the
Caucasus. Finally, there came on the outermost left wing of the
Russians the Trans-Amoor border guards, a troop designed purely for
protection of the railway in North Manchuria, whose use in this part
of the area of war was probably not foreseen even in Russia.
Yet the Russians still held along the lower San the bridge-head of
Radymo on the west bank. The problem of the next ensuing battles was
to drive him also from this point.